Over There with the Australians | Page 4

greater, but I have met few better-educated
men. His eyesight was marvellous, and I don't think that he ever forgot
an incident, however slight. After a route march our scouts have to
write down everything they saw, not omitting the very smallest detail.
For example, if we pass through a village they have to give an estimate
by examining the stores, how many troops it could support, and so on.
No other list was ever as large as Dan's. He saw and remembered
everything. He had received his training as a child looking for horses in
a paddock so large that if you did not know where to look you might
search for a week. Out there in the country of the black-tracker powers
of observation are abnormally developed--lives depend on it, as when
in a drought the watercourses dry up, and only the signs written on the
ground indicate to him who can read them where the life-saving fluid
may be found. Dan was a wonderful scout, a true and loyal friend, but
he had absolutely no "sense of ownership." He thought that whatever
another man possessed he had a right to; but, on the other hand, any

one else had an equal right to appropriate anything of his (Dan's). He
never put forward any theory about it, but would just help himself to
anything he wanted, not troubling to hide it, and he never made any
fuss if some one picked up something of his that was not in use. I never
saw such a practical example of communism. At first, there were a
number of rows about it, but after a while if any of the boys missed
anything they would go and hunt through Dan's kit for it. The only time
he made a fuss at losing anything was when one of his mates for a lark
took his rosary. He soon discovered, by shrewd questioning, who it was,
and there was a fight that landed them both in the guard-tent. The boys
forbore to tease him about his inconsistency when he said: "It was
mother's. She brought it from Ireland." Dan was still scouting when I
was sent out well-punctured, and I doubt if there are any who have
accounted for more of the Potsdam swine single-handed. His score was
known to be over a hundred when I left. If I can get back again, may I
have Dan in my squad! These two are but types of the boys I lived with
so long, and got to love so well. Few of my early comrades are left on
the earth; but we are not separated even from those who have "gone
west," and the war has given to me, in time and eternity, many real
friends.
The following pages are not a history of the Australians. I have no
means of collecting and checking data, but they are an attempt to show
the true nature of the Australian soldier, and sent out with the hope that
they will remind some, in this great American democracy, of the
contribution made by the freemen who live across the ocean of peace
from you to "make the world safe for democracy."
I also have the hope that the stories of personal experience will make
real to you some of the men whose bodies have been for three years
part of that human rampart that has kept your homes from desolation,
and your daughters from violation, and that you will speed in sending
them succor as though the barrier had broken and the bestial Hun were
even now, with lust dominant, smashing at your own door.
[1] Boys Own Paper.
[2] "Ben" was the living-room of a Scotch cottage where only intimate

friends were admitted. Ian Maclaren says of a very good man: "He was
far ben wi God."




PART I
"THE CALL TO ARMS"



CHAPTER I
THE CALL REACHES SOME FAR-OUT AUSTRALIANS
Just where the white man's continent pushes the tip of its horn among
the eastern lands there is a black man's land half as large as Mexico that
is administered by the government of Australia. New Guinea has all the
romance and lure of unexplored regions. It is a country of nature's
wonders, a treasure-chest with the lid yet to be raised by some intrepid
discoverer. There are tree-climbing fish, and pygmy men, mountains
higher and rivers greater than any yet discovered. To the north of
Australia's slice of this wonderland the Kaiser was squeezing a hunk of
the same island in his mailed fist.
The contrast between the administration of these two portions of the
same land forms the best answer to the question: "What shall be done
with Germany's colonies?"

In German New Guinea there have always been more